Copyright reform is back as the government has placed the copyright reform bill on the notice paper. It is scheduled to be introduced on Thursday, alongside the privacy reform bill that also died with the March election call.

It was bound to happen.DRM is indirectly about control of networks, and specifically THE network; the Internet, and the very culture of sharing.

Moreover, nations are now arguing in the UN about how to govern and reign in the Internet while 90% of the world is dying from lack of basic information and technology (rain barrels, pumps, agricultural and manufacturing tools, algorithms, and basic psychological strategies for emotional well being – all of which 100% solvable with kindergarten-level ‘sharing’ and kindness).

Meanwhile, in Canada we are happily patenting ideas and, like any good 1st-world nation, crafting laws like these so we can continue to corner markets, bottle access, and sell it to those who are perpetually (axiomatically) desperate. Because, you see, there is no 1st world if there is no 3rd world.

On behalf of every homeless person who starves to death on the curb of a grocery store this winter, I salute you Canada. Bitterness through and through.

tabling copyright: a lose-lose government prospectThe responses to Minister Moore’s tweet today (Wed.), about tabling the bill, show that it’s seen very differently — but equally negatively — by creators and educators. It seems a trying-to-please-everyone compromise is vexing everyone instead. (Still, I’ll take a flexible compromise over what we’re staring down now.)

@Grey Goose, your comment helpfully clarifies why copyright is an issue everybody should care about, though many still don’t. Hope you don’t mind that I’ve reproduced it in my blog post (a link-dense update) about the new bill: “A ‘constitutionally suspect’ copyright bill, to build a nation of criminals” http://wp.me/poR4A-pV